Emergency situations often require the immediate implementation of appropriate emergency procedures to minimize injuries and loss of human life. For example, in the event of a building emergency, such as for example a fire, providing immediate effective professional guidance to the building occupants during a building evacuation may save lives. Also in the event of large scale emergencies, such as for example, a hurricane, an earthquake or tornado, providing prompt warnings and guidance via direct communication with the people in the vicinity of the emergency situation may be instrumental in minimizing panic and guiding people in the vicinity of the emergency situation to locations of greater safety.
Public areas are sometimes placed under surveillance and monitored by live personnel at remote monitoring centers. However, in the event of an emergency, personnel at the monitoring centers do not typically themselves provide guidance to the people in the vicinity of the emergency situation. Such monitoring centers may contact an emergency response facility, such as for example, the police department or fire department to respond to the emergency situation. Strategically placed emergency telephones may be available to a user to request emergency assistance in the event of an emergency situation. However, the locations of such telephones may not be readily known to customers, guests or other visitors present at the facility. In addition, the oral information that might be conveyed to and from the user in an emergency is limited to the communication skills of the user and the emergency personnel recipient at the other end of the phone line and the audio quality of their communications. Visitors such as tourists may not speak the same language as the emergency personnel. In emergencies, environment noise levels and/or hearing loss suffered by the user in the emergency may greatly impede the flow of useful information.
In addition, and depending on the severity of the emergency, the user of one-way real-time surveillance systems described above may not be able to speak or communicate with enough length or clarity to provide the needed information to the emergency monitoring personnel. Smoke and other conditions may impair the unprotected user's breathing due to contamination of the ambient air at the emergency site, thus inhibiting or foreclosing meaningful oral communications from the emergency user's location.
In order to overcome some of these potential disadvantages, others have suggested surveillance systems involving audio communication and one-way real-time video surveillance whereby an emergency monitoring person can view conditions at the location of the emergency user. See, e.g. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2003/0227540 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,538,689. While these types of one-way real-time video surveillance systems may provide some useful information to the emergency personnel, the persons present at the emergency site must rely on the quality of the communication from the emergency personnel. Such limitations prevent, for example, display of location maps, exits, and best exit route(s) to the user. In addition, if the user does not share a common language with the emergency personnel the former's requests and the latter's instructions may be meaningless.
It is desirable, therefore, to provide systems and methods for responding to an emergency situation that overcomes one or more of the prior art limitations described above.